boot ends with no prompt, no gui, nothing

[dllahr]

Hello

I'm very new to Tiny Core, excited to be trying it out.  I feel like I'm missing something really obvious, but I'm booting of a usb mem stick built using apu-tinycore-usb-installer.exe (from https://www.pcengines.ch/tinycore.htm).  I see lots of text that looks like normal linux OS boot on a tty terminal display, and then it ends with:

Loading extensions... Done.
Setting keymap to us Done.
Skipping DHCP broadcast/network detection as requested on boot commandline.
Setting hostname to box Done.
waiting for /dev/sda1
login[688]: root login on 'ttyS0'

I would have expected a command line prompt at this point.  I tried using alt-F*, ctrl-alt-F* to see if there was a terminal elsewhere I could use, but nothing.

How do I get to the terminal?

Thank you,
Dave

[curaga]

You're using a third-party remaster, and according to the messages, it only sets up a console on the serial line.

[dllahr]

Thank you! 

From the official documentation (http://tinycorelinux.net/overview.html#boot) it seems that if I want to make a bootable USB, I need to first make a bootable CD, boot into tinycore, then follow the instructions to make the bootable USB.  Other instructions / tools I've found (https://mivilisnet.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/tiny-core-linux-on-a-usb-stick/) require either Windows 7 or later (don't have) or running tinyCore (don't have).

I found these instructions (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=111.0) that require syslinux (don't have that either since I'm running raspbian) but it seems I can attempt the modified version using grub instead of syslinux

Just a quick sanity check - I'm not missing something obvious, there's no quick / easy way to setup a bootable usb w/ tinycore right?

Thanks,
Dave

[curaga]

I'm not sure if an ARM version of grub is any way compatible with x86. Only having an ARM linux running is bit of a handicap, there may not be a syslinux installer there either.

However, if you have two usb sticks, you can dd the TinyCore/CorePlus iso to one on Raspbian, boot from it, and install to the other.

I'm sure you could somehow wrangle a manual install from ARM linux too, but it may be difficult.

[PDP-8]

I feel for ya' - it's a rite of passage.  What used to be a simple DD or 3rd party burn with Core2usb, Unetbootin (which Roberts himself had no problem with), wikis moving, and hardware changes in the industry, it can be hard to get started even if you do your due diligence.

So, to better help, what do you really have?

1) What machine model are you wanting to install TC to?

2) What setup do you already have?  You mention raspbian -- OR are you really running the X86/64 "Raspberry Pi Desktop", which mimics the arm distro on an X86 box...

[mocore]

Just a quick sanity check - I'm not missing something obvious, there's no quick / easy way to setup a bootable usb w/ tinycore right?

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,22546.msg141259.html#msg141259

the post linked above contains

a small script ( fetching the files )
and
an example bootloader config

that should be  all that is required*

* both with the correct  file paths
* and correct partition number(s) and or  label-names

then just *install* the bootloader that will read the "menu" configuration  file ..


 if you are running on arm ?? or some other not x86 cpu ... and you want an x86 bootable usb
 it might be possible to use a virtual machine ( eg qemu) to boot to x86 distro and install the (x86)loader on usb

 

ftr / imho  a good place for discussion wrt  'booting(x86)' in general is http://reboot.pro/

[NewUser]

Instead of using what you did, search sourceforge.net for core2usb. Download the executable and write the .iso to your thumbdrive. Remember, when you get to a boot screen, to use the waitusb=5 line.

[dllahr]

Thank you all for the response - let me answer the question about what I'm really trying to do.  I've got some old PC laptops and desktop computers, I'd like to run shred on the drives before recycling.

My thought was to boot them into tinycore via a usb stick, identify the hard drives, run shred on them.

The PC's are running XP / similar and can't use a browser / www anymore
I only have a 128 MB USB stick
I have a mac laptop, and a raspberry pi running raspbian.

I realize these constraints are a bit arbitrary - I could in theory get a larger USB stick, use a larger distro - but I thought in theory it would be possible and I wanted to learn what's out there.

I'm going to try core2usb, I might be able to get that on one of the windows machines and make a bootable USB drive that way.

Thank you again everyone!

[Rich]

Hi dllahr
You don't need shred. Can you burn a CD? Then burn either  Core  or  TinyCore  found here:
http://tinycorelinux.net/downloads.html
After it boots enter this at the command line (or a terminal if using TinyCore):

Code: [Select]

fdisk -lThis will list the disks and their partitions on your machine.

For example:

Code: [Select]

tc@box:~$ fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1   *           1       12756   102459392  83 Linux
/dev/sda2           19327       19458     1047552  82 Linux swap
/dev/sda3           12756       14031    10240000  83 Linux
/dev/sda4           14031       19327    42542080   5 Extended
/dev/sda5           14031       15302    10210304  83 Linux
/dev/sda6           15302       16574    10216448  83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 60.0 GB, 60000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7294 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sdb1               1         642     5155840  83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sdb2             642        1161     4167680   5 Extended
/dev/sdb3            1161        1799     5124096  83 Linux
/dev/sdb5             643         770     1025024  83 Linux
/dev/sdb6             770         898     1024000   7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb7             898        1161     2115584  83 Linux
tc@box:~$In this case we have 2 disks, sda  and  sdb.  References like  sda1, sda2 etc. are partitions which you are not interested in since
you want to wipe the entire disk.

Now that you know the names of the disks on the machine, you would run:

Code: [Select]

sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=4096
sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb bs=4096If you get a  "No space left on device"  message, it just means you fill the drive with random data.

[dllahr]

Thank you for the quick response!

In the interim - before I saw your post - I was able to get core2usb on the windows box, install Core ISO on the USB drive, boot into it.

I was using dd instead of shred (realized that on my own at least) and am now running dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda bs=1M

(was going to use /dev/zero until I read your post)

I'm really psyched to have the bootable USB drive with tinyCore to do this

Thanks again!